Abba, Respectful and Intimate.

Recently I have been having great time in God's presence, where God has been just revealing to me his faithfulness and love. The more I thought about God the more I started to call him father, not really dad or daddy, but father. I did not avoid saying this because I thought that it is wrong to address God like that but I have said those words with the spirit of of worship behind it, being glad that he calls me his son.

So the more I thought about the word father, the word Abba sprung to my mind and I began to look this up and there are some interesting theories people have put up on the translation of he word and why it was used. Firstly many people think it means daddy and it was the first sort of word toddlers have learnt, but it turned out to be wrong. Within the middle eastern culture, even elderly men were called father. The word is more respectful but also indicates a close relationship with the person. However, once I have established that, I thought about why Paul and and Mark wanted to used the word father (pater/πατηρ) as well. My theory is that is not just to create emphasis, as Greek and Hebrew often tend to repeat a word or a phrase for extra emphasis (because there were no exclamation marks!). Instead, the word Abba must have had something to it that was not simply good enough to describe God as father. In Greek the word pater, simply denotes a biological figure or someone adopting someone, simply father, the choice for the use of Aramaic was possibly unnecessary because I doubt that there were many Romans who spoke it in Rome or Galatia. 

I think, Paul and mark wanted to separate the fatherhood of God away from what the world perceived it as, because in the context children were not always pending a lot of time with their families, instead they had friends, tutors and nurses to take care of them,  unless they were poor, then they were made to work instead. yet Abba is different because you not only worship him out of respect but also you acknowledge him to be someone with whom you totally shared your life with. So I think these passages show to us that this world and the Greco-Roman world has/had  fatherhood messed up and a new definition was used. 

Then again maybe it was not so bad, after all the word Abba was used only 3 times in NT. Nevertheless, be challenged to believe that our God is not far removed but wants to be close with you and wants you to call him and call out for him, to be vulnerable and totally dependent on him, so no matter the care how big or small just say deeply with joy and worship in your heart: "Father/Abba". These are just my thoughts they could be right or wrong. I have no theology degree so don't quote me as the bible; hopefully this was some food for thought.